Strategies for critical reflection

Here are some strategies which will help you achieve the deep thinking necessary in a Reflection Paper. Note the emphasis on questioning.

Ask yourself why something happened, or why something did not happen.
Ask yourself what was good: why?; what was bad: why?; what was neither good nor bad, yet interesting and relevant: why?
Think of alternatives; what other things could have happened and how could you devise ways of making them happen?
Look for other points of view (e.g., what was this like from the students’ perspective?).
Look for hidden assumptions in others’ attitudes, and in your own (e.g., what incidents in my own schooling have led me to believe this?; what are the hidden rules in my own culture?).
Parts and qualities: look at something as a collection of parts (components and relationships), but also as a set of qualities (e.g., values and judgements).
Look at something from an opposite point of view to challenge it.
Ask who might be advantaged and who might be disadvantaged by current (and new hypothetical) responses and actions.